


Everything All At Once

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 07:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19865782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Steve is alone in this brave new world, and he can't decide whether to move forwards or backwards as he tries to embrace life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvsanime02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/gifts).



> As always, all the thanks to Ro for editing and everything.
> 
> This is a stand-alone one shot, but once upon a time (read: Before Endgame) I had plans to expand this into a slowburn recovery/love story thing. But then Endgame happened and 1)the compass was RUINED for me and 2)I just... don't have it in me to get this angsty for this long.
> 
> Chapter 1 is that stand-alone one shot, but Chapter 2 is the outline for what WOULD have been the multi-chapter version.

It was far enough after midnight that most places were closed, but far enough away from dawn that not everyone was safe and sound back in their beds.

Two in the morning, darkness surrounding him and an unfamiliar, shattered skyline in the distance, and Steve Rogers was out for a walk.

Weirdly, this was the time of day when Steve felt the most at home in Brooklyn, in the city of his birth. A city he hadn’t lived in for seventy years. The illuminated storefronts were different - brighter and more numerous than they had been when he left a Brooklyn still recovering from the Depression in 1942 - but they were also the same strange and familiar smorgasbord of shops that reflected the Brooklyn of his youth.

Bars and diners and cleaners and bakeries and grocers - bodegas, they were called these days - massage parlours that looked just as shady now as they had back then, for all of their bright lights. Sure, some things were different, but even the yoga studios and smoothie kings bore a passing similarity to the strange and new businesses struggling to survive back then.

The people who were out at this time of night, looking for a drink before last call, making their way home after an evening out, lost souls like himself - this was familiar too. It reminded him of the times before the war, the bars and dance halls he had been dragged to, the back alleys he had drunkenly stumbled through after.

This wasn’t the time or the place for Captain America, but it was the only glimmer of the world Steve Rogers had left behind.

He did a lot of late night walking these days. Even with long days focused on cleaning up the destruction of Midtown after the Chitauri invasion, Steve had too much energy. He had had a week - ten days - out of the ice and constantly monitored by SHIELD before putting back on the suit. In those spare few days, Steve hadn’t made much of an effort to explore the world - hell, he’d barely made an effort to stay  _ alive _ . SHIELD had provided him with an apartment in Brooklyn - in Red Hook, even - as if familiar street signs were all Steve needed to convince himself he was home. Steve made himself simple meals - eggs and toast, beans and toast, spam and toast - and he drank coffee, and he read the newspaper every morning and tried to find the will to make sense of it. Usually, he gave up before he even made it below the fold of the first page and just pulled out the sports section to read the box scores. He ate his meals, he drank his coffee, he read the newspaper, and he haunted the gym around the corner at all hours after the owner recognized him because his  _ grandfather _ had been rescued by Steve at Azzano. 

After the Chitauri, after coming to terms with the reality that he was alive, that at this rate he might be alive  _ forever _ , Steve had expanded his routine. He added supplement smoothies to his diet - at Bruce’s insistence - and after his morning coffee, Steve joined in whatever rebuilding efforts he could that day - always incognito, always desperate to work until his brain stopped shouting at him. After dark, Steve went home and ate, forced himself to read the paper front page to back page, and then he went to the gym for as many hours as he could stand being in a dark, musty place by himself. 

It was only after all of that that Steve gave himself this one reward for making it through another day - let himself wander the streets he had once known as well as he knew his own hands - and tried to lose himself in memory.

He was somewhere in Brooklyn Heights, walking slowly and distractedly, trying to enjoy the crispness of the night air and wondering if the summer would be mild. Well, not Brooklyn Heights, anymore.  _ DUMBO, _ they called it now, or at least the part that Steve was haunting that night.

There used to be a bar around here, one that served drinks that were too strong and had a tiny little stage in one corner where boys dressed in women’s clothes performed. Just thinking about it made Steve flush, made him remember all kinds of things that he had promised himself not to think of again. The past was just that - behind him and impossible to touch again. Dead and buried. If only Steve could just  _ leave it _ that way.

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t a bar anymore. Instead, the little hole-in-the-wall establishment was a tattoo parlor, Plymouth Tattoo Shop. It looked just as disreputable as the bar had, windows illuminated by red lights that were painfully bright, and Steve stopped to stare.

He could almost  _ taste _ gin on his tongue, his memories of being here were so strong. He thought about the back alley, the press of rough brick to his naked thighs, the twinkle of stars in the sky above and the press of a hot mouth to his cock below and-

Steve shook his head. 

No.

He wasn’t Steve Rogers from Brooklyn. Not anymore.  _ That _ Steve had died. And now, he was Captain America, through and through. He was not the man who had gone down in the Valkyrie all those years ago, and no amount of wishing would make that so.

Little Stevie Rogers, who flirted with men at night and picked fights with them during the day, was gone. Little Stevie, who could be convinced to sing after enough drinks, who had once borrowed a feather boa from one of the paid female impersonators and pranced around the bar like he was something worth looking at - that Stevie was gone. That Steve hadn’t even survived to the war - left behind like everything else when Steve shook Dr. Erskine’s hand and signed his body over to the US government.

But even that Steve, the one who had been a dancing monkey until he suddenly wasn’t anymore, the Steve who had found the time to trade illicit kisses in dark alleys in London and Paris, who had finally worked up the courage to look at a beautiful woman and  _ talk _ to her, and kiss her and worship her - that Steve was dead too.

He had been down to DC, had seen the permanent display the Smithsonian had set up in the Air and Space Museum - the whys of which no one could really explain to him, though Tony had of course made a quip about Steve belonging with the rest of the country’s engineering projects - and he had seen the collection of items that supposedly represented Steve Rogers, the man behind the mask.

Letters, sketches, a beat-all-to-hell canteen, a shitty pulp novel that Steve never had finished, and the compass. 

The compass. Howard had had it, that day, had swiped it from Steve’s gear without Steve even knowing, without Steve even caring. Steve had already been half-dead then, and there hadn’t been much he cared about except revenge and the end of HYDRA.

And now, when Steve honestly, desperately, wanted to wrap his fingers around the beaten brass and flip it open, when he wanted to see the photo of Peggy on the inside cover and the needle pointing him North, as true and constant as ever, Steve’s hands were empty.

He swallowed down the wave of self-pity, bit back the accompanying nausea, and tried to force himself to walk away.

But then his eyes caught on the tattoo parlour window, on a cluster of long-haired, laughing women looking through a book on a glass counter and- 

And Steve felt reckless and hopeless and walked into the shop.

It wasn’t just a tattoo parlor, he realized at once. They must do piercings too, because display cases lined the walls, showing off all kinds of things from studs to rings to things Steve couldn't quite wrap his head around. Where did that even  _ go _ ?

A balding, paunch-bellied man in a faded  _ Mets _ sweater stood behind the glass counter, one eye on the group of girls, the other tracking Steve.

Steve saw there was another book on the counter, at the opposite end from the women, who were laughing and teasing each other as they leafed through the pages. He walked over and opened up the other book.

He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for, wasn’t even sure  _ why _ he was looking, but Steve flipped through the pages and examined each one slowly and carefully.

The girls left, still giggling, and the man behind the counter turned his full attention on Steve.

“So, you want a tattoo?” he asked Steve, his English heavily-accented.

“I don’t know,” Steve answered honestly. “I think so.”

The man snorted in amusement.

“You know they’re permanent, right?”

Steve knew that. Of course he knew that.

Actually.

He frowned and looked up, involuntarily looking at the man as if he could answer the question that had suddenly occurred to Steve.

_ Would the serum even let him? _

The man raised his eyebrows at Steve’s expression, but then his eyebrows lowered as he really looked at Steve.

“Huh,” was all he said.

But it was enough.

Steve flushed and looked back down at the book.

He should leave. 

He should-

“I want that.”

He pointed to a black line drawing of a compass superimposed on a line drawing of the globe.

“Huh,” the man said again. Then, turning away from Steve, “Jimmy!”

Steve turned himself, looking in the direction the man had shouted. At the opposite end of the small, narrow anteroom they stood in was a door leading to - well, seventy years ago, it had led to the bar proper. Now, Steve had no idea. There was also, Steve noted, a staircase going down, into some kind of basement that definitely hadn’t been open the last time Steve was in this building.

“Jimmy!” the man shouted again. “Get your ass up here, you’ve got a customer.”

Steve tried to piece together more of his surroundings. There was music on, muffled and likely from downstairs, and now that he was listening for it, he could hear the  _ whirr _ of tattoo guns and a few words of conversation.

“I’m not working late  _ again _ , Ivan,” a voice growled from below. “I worked past my shift last night, and the night before that, and the night before that.” The voice rose in volume, accompanied by the stomping of booted feet on stair treads, and Steve found himself watching the staircase anxiously. “So, no, Ivan, I don’t have a fucking customer. I am not-”

Jimmy came into view, and as soon as he saw Steve, he stopped talking.

As much as that irritated him, as much as it  _ always _ irritated him, Steve was also strangely glad for the moment it gave him to take in Jimmy.

Tall, with a rangy build that spoke of lean muscle, Jimmy had dark hair pulled up in a messy bun and a full, closely-trimmed dark beard on his face that contrasted nicely with his pale skin and dark lips. His eyes were gray and, currently, unflatteringly wide in confusion. He was dressed entirely in black - boots, jeans that made his legs look like they were ten miles long, tight black long-sleeved t-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His neck, arms, and collarbones were all tattooed in intricate, delicate floral motifs in black, with splashes of color here and there, as if petals and leaves and stems and vines were slowly being filled in with color by a painter.

“Fuck you,” Jimmy sighed, and his shoulders slumped.

It startled Steve out of his not-at-all subtle examination of the purple flowers on Jimmy’s left arm.

Behind the counter, Ivan grinned.

“Not my fault he picked your work, Jimmy.” Ivan tapped the book where Steve’s finger was still, stupidly, resting on the compass tattoo.

Jimmy sighed again, and crossed over to stand next to Ivan.

“You want a tattoo?” Jimmy asked, and the question and tone had Steve’s spine straightening and jaw clenching.

“Yeah, I want a tattoo. Is that an issue?”

Jimmy snorted.

“Relax, pal. Jesus.”

Steve glared at him, and Jimmy rolled his eyes.

“Where do you want it?” Jimmy asked.

Steve hadn’t considered that.

Actually, Steve hadn’t considered  _ any _ of this.

What the fuck was he doing?

He looked down at the compass again.

“Here,” he said, and tapped his own chest, just over his heart.

Jimmy arched an eyebrow, but then he shrugged.

“How big?”

“Uh…” Steve demonstrated the size he wanted with his fingers. It made Jimmy smirk.

“Yeah, sure. Ivan’s going to get you to sign some shit and pay. I’ll go set up my entire fucking kit again, since I packed it up, since I’m  _ off the clock _ ,” Jimmy growled, ire directed at Ivan.

Ivan gave him a toothy grin, and Jimmy flipped him off before stomping back downstairs.

Steve turned to Ivan, who shoved a clipboard into his hands.

“Do you have a driver’s license or some form of identification I can have on file?” Ivan asked Steve as Steve began to fill out the questionnaire on the clipboard.

Absentmindedly, Steve dug out his wallet and passed over his SHIELD-issued ID. It was clear that he had already been recognized by both Ivan and Jimmy, so there was no point in trying to get around them seeing his name.

Steve finished filling out the form and handed it over just as Ivan finished photocopying his ID. 

“How much?” Steve asked him, keeping his wallet out and hoping he had enough cash on-hand. He wasn’t an idiot, and he knew that SHIELD monitored his back account. As much of his “life” as he could keep private from them, he wanted to.

“Two-fifty,” Ivan said. 

Steve had no idea if that was a fair price, but he also didn’t much care. Especially since he had three crisp hundred-dollar bills in his wallet. He passed them over, and Ivan rang him up and gave him back his change.

“I’ll take you down to Jimmy,” Ivan said, and stepped out from behind the counter.

Steve followed him down the stairs, having a disconcerting moment of deja vu as he remembered clearing houses in Italy, making his way down into a basement and finding a family huddling against the wall and cowering in terror, fully expecting to be killed instead of liberated.

The basement of the tattoo parlor was nothing like those houses. The walls were a bright, unpleasant lime green and covered with posters of naked or mostly-naked women in suggestive poses. The floor was black and white checked tile, and there were six tattoo stations set up, four empty, one occupied by a black tattoo artist giving a very small, very purple-haired white woman a tattoo of angel wings on her back. The other station was, of course, occupied by Jimmy.

Ivan gestured him over, and then headed back up the stairs while Steve awkwardly made his way over to Jimmy.

The decor, the low ceiling, the bright lights - all combined to make Steve feel too big, out of place and unwelcome.

Jimmy gave the red vinyl seat in front of him an inviting pat.

“Take off your shirt and sit down, Ca-, pal,” Jimmy corrected himself with a wince.

Steve had to smirk, but the slip-up and the correction put him at ease. Or, at least, steered him in that direction.

Ivan hadn’t made a big deal out of Steve being Captain America. Jimmy hadn’t either, aside from the wide-eyed stare when he first saw Steve. This - this was as close as Steve had come to  _ not _ being Captain America since 1942.

Steve pulled off his shirt and folded it before handing it over to Jimmy, who put it on a desk against the wall.

He eased himself into the chair, and Jimmy, seated on a rolling stool, moved closer.

“No chest hair,” Jimmy said, voice soft, and Steve didn’t know if he was speaking to himself or to Steve.

“No,” Steve responded anyway. “Never had much luck growing anything but this mess.” He gave his hair a tug, and Jimmy followed the gesture and nodded. Another smirk was curving his lips, this one softer, kinder than the expression he had worn upstairs.

“I feel you. I worried I’d never get this to grow in.” He jerked his own chin, displaying his beard.

“It looks good,” Steve assured him, and then immediately felt like a complete fucking moron.

Jimmy just kept smirking as he pulled on gloves and opened up a sterile cleaning pad.

“This is gonna be cold,” he warned Steve before wiping off his chest.

The room itself was warm, but the pad was indeed cold, and Steve shivered at the press of it.

“You want this in just black?” Jimmy asked, eyes on Steve’s chest.

“I- I think so. I’m not even sure this will work.”

Jimmy shrugged and tossed the pad into a trashcan. 

“Sure, but if it  _ does _ work, you’re stuck with it, right?”

Steve watched as Jimmy picked up a piece of transfer paper, the tattoo design inked onto it in purple, and pressed it to Steve’s chest.

“Here?” Jimmy asked.

Steve nodded, heart beating a little faster.

Jimmy wet the paper, movements confident and precise, and a moment later, peeled it away.

Steve stared down at the purple lines left behind on his skin.

“That okay?”

It was a little surreal to see it, even knowing that it was temporary, at least for the moment. Steve resisted the urge to touch the lines.

He swallowed hard, forced back words and emotions and memories.

“It’s great,” Steve rasped out.

Jimmy frowned at him.

“No, it is. Black is fine, too. Black is good.”

Jimmy held his gaze for a moment, but then he nodded.

“Okay, sure. Black it is. So, this is gonna hurt some - burns a bit - but-”

“I’ll be fine,” Steve assured him.

Jimmy rolled his eyes.

“ _ But _ ,” he continued, “I need you to stay still for me. If you need me to stop - if you gotta itch or move or whatever, tell me.”

Steve nodded and forced himself to try to relax back into the chair as Jimmy turned on the tattoo gun.

Jimmy’s hand, even through the glove, felt warm as he framed the tattoo design and held Steve steady. 

The first burning pinch of the gun into his skin had Steve sucking in a breath and closing his eyes. 

In the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t hurt that much - not like being shot, not like being stabbed, not like having the love of his life die with no chance to even say goodbye.

It actually, once Steve made himself breathe again, felt… nice. It was a constant drag of sensation, not painful enough to make Steve want to shy away, but not actually pleasurable. Steve wasn’t really sure what it said about him that he enjoyed it, but, well, there were few enough things that he enjoyed these days. 

If walks at two in the morning and tattoos were the only things he had left that he could appreciate, then he was damn well going to appreciate them.

Steve had no idea how much time passed, lost in the sensation of the gun and the darkness of his closed eyes, before Jimmy stopped.

“How are you doing?” Jimmy asked.

Steve blinked his eyes open, wincing at the unexpectedly bright light. He focused on Jimmy’s face, taking in the concerned frown that made his eyes crease and his lips turn down.

“I’m okay,” Steve assured him, though he wasn’t surprised that his voice sounded rough and a little raw.

Jimmy raised one eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed by Steve’s assertion, and passed him a bottle of water.

Steve accepted it and cracked it open. He took a sip, then another, and then finished it off while Jimmy sat there smirking.

Steve glared at him, but then looked down at himself.

The skin around the design was red, but the design itself - it was only halfway done, by Steve’s estimation, but it was amazing. 

“Wow.”

Jimmy’s smirk turned soft again.

“It’s getting there,” he shrugged. “You okay for me to keep going?”

Steve nodded eagerly, and Jimmy chuckled before pressing his hand on Steve’s chest and guiding him back in the chair. Steve went willingly and closed his eyes again.

Jimmy went back to work, and Steve settled back into that same place full of sensation.

“Damn. Good work, dude.”

It was some time later, and Steve opened his eyes to see the black tattoo artist standing behind Jimmy’s chair, the purple-haired woman nowhere in sight.

Steve felt a moment of embarrassment as he realized just how very poor his entire situational awareness currently was, and he wondered what that said about him.

“Well, it’s not like I get paid to do shitty work, Luke,” Jimmy muttered, eyes still fixed on Steve’s chest.

The other man laughed.

“You calling my work shit?”

“Nah. You’re like fucking Michelangelo, Luke. Rest of us mortals are just trying to keep up.”

Jimmy noticed Steve’s eyes were open, and he winked at Steve before turning back to his work.

“Who did your work?” Steve asked, because he was pretty sure Jimmy hadn’t done them himself.

Luke’s grin turned into a face-splitting smile.

“That would be me, fucking Michelangelo. But most people just call me Luke. The designs are all him, though.”

“They’re gorgeous,” Steve said earnestly, once again letting himself look at the purple flowers on Jimmy’s left arm, now so close to him.

Jimmy’s cheeks flushed, but Luke took the compliment with a nod.

“Can’t go fucking up my buddy, not after all the other shit he’s been through,” Luke said, and the look he gave the back of Jimmy’s head made it clear that he was very attached to the man.

Jimmy’s cheeks remained flushed.

“Okay,” he growled, “cool it, or I’m gonna cry all over my work.”

“You have been known to cry over-”

“Luke,” Jimmy interrupted, voice low and dangerous, and so very different from the tone he had used earlier, even when he had been irritated with Ivan.

Luke rolled his eyes, but he didn’t finish his sentence.

Jimmy sat up.

“Alright. All done.”

It was so abrupt, Steve found himself scowling. He hadn’t really anticipated Jimmy  _ finishing _ \- which, honestly, felt ridiculous - but-

But the tattoo was gorgeous.

Steve’s skin was still red, the black lines outlined in darker red and raised skin, but it was still absolutely everything Steve had wanted and not even known he wanted.

Jimmy used a damp towel to wipe off ink and blood, and then both he and Luke looked at Steve’s chest critically.

In some ways, it reminded Steve of the scientists who had examined him after the serum injections and irradiation treatments. In other ways, it felt entirely different and very welcome.

“Damn fine work, Barnes,” Luke concluded, and gave Jimmy’s shoulder a squeeze.

Jimmy’s lips curved into another of his soft smirks and-

“Barnes?” Steve echoed.

Jimmy’s smirk vanished.

“Uh,” Luke looked between Jimmy and Steve, “I’m just… gonna go help Ivan close up shop upstairs,” Luke said, and then he fled.

Leaving Steve alone with a guy named Jimmy  _ Barnes _ .

“Jimmy short for James?” Steve had to ask.

Jimmy nodded, even as he rolled his stool away from Steve and started to strip off his gloves.

“Your name is James Barnes.”

“Yep,” Jimmy said, exaggerating the p.

“You’re-”

“Named after Him, yeah. James Buchanan Barnes.” Jimmy confirmed, and Steve could  _ hear _ the way he capitalized the  _ h _ in him.

Steve stared at him, mind nothing but white fuzz and the sound of Bucky’s scream as he fell from the train.

Jimmy methodically cleaned his tools and cleared off his space.

“Why?” Steve eventually asked.

Jimmy gave him a look over his shoulder, and Steve couldn’t help but compare it, to compare  _ him _ , to Bucky.

To the looks Bucky had given him - knowing, exasperated, confident, sensual - the way Bucky had looked at Steve like he knew him inside and out, and had never seen anyone so beautiful or so damn annoying.

And Jimmy… Jimmy did not look unlike Bucky. The shape of his nose, the sharp slant of his cheekbones above his beard, even the shape of his full lips. Steve found himself wondering, somewhat hysterically, if Jimmy had that same stupid cleft in his chin that Bucky had had. Found his brain jumping from one possibility to the next - found himself stupidly, ridiculously, wondering if Jimmy and Bucky were somehow-

“Family tradition,” Jimmy sighed. “Been a James Buchanan Barnes in every generation ever since the family moved over from Scotland in 1859.”

Steve stared at him.

“What-”

“First cousin, three times removed,” Jimmy said in a quick rush. “He was my great-great granddad’s nephew.”

Steve stared at him.

This had to be some kind of dream. Some kind of nightmare?

Some-

“Elliot or James?” Steve asked.

“What?” Jimmy was scowling now, looking torn between concern and annoyance. And fuck, if that expression wasn’t eerily reminiscent of  _ Bucky _ . Only, Jimmy’s lips were wider, his frown more pronounced, and his eyes were more gray than blue, his eyebrows a little thicker, a little wilder, than Bucky’s ever had been.

“Your great-great-granddad.”

“James,” Jimmy said. “My great granddad was Samuel - your- His cousin.”

Steve nodded.

He had met Samuel. He had even met Bucky’s Uncle James. Bucky’s father, George, had been the unanticipated baby of the family, born much later than his brothers Elliot and James, and Samuel had been almost two decades older than Bucky. Hell, Steve remembered Bucky’s mother taking care of Samuel’s son - also named James - one month when both Samuel and his wife Rachel were sick with scarlet fever.

Jesus.

Bucky’s first cousin, three times removed, had just tattooed Steve.

Had just given Steve a compass tattoo directly over his heart.

It was- it was  _ not _ funny. There was nothing about this situation that was at all funny, but all the same, Steve found himself laughing.

Achingly, chest-heaving laughter that had him crying and gasping and wishing he was  _ dead _ and-

Jimmy stayed there, let Steve’s hysteria consume him while he continued to clean and organize, and eventually, Steve’s laughter became manageable, and then died entirely as he watched Jimmy work.

Once Steve’s breathing was almost normal, Jimmy passed him another bottle of water. Steve greedily gulped it down.

“I had a compass, during the war,” Steve said.

Jimmy nodded.

“I know.”

Of course he did. Everyone knew. Everyone knew these unsorted pieces of Steve’s life, everyone owned a part of him, and no one cared about the person that had been shattered and left behind.

Steve forced himself to take a deep breath and slowly release it. Then another.

“Bucky gave it to me,” Steve said. “Bucky gave me the compass, and he- he put the photo of Peggy in it too.”

Jimmy looked over at him.

“I didn’t know that,” he said, voice soft, sympathetic.

Steve nodded and swallowed back an urge to start laughing again.

“That’s why - this,” Steve said, and gestured at the tattoo. “I wanted that - wanted  _ them _ \- to be here, with me.”

Jimmy turned his full attention on Steve, gray eyes darkening when Steve’s voice cracked, lips parting as if he might speak, and then Steve was crying.

He felt like he had lost Bucky all over again. Felt like he had woken up and been told Peggy was alive, but hospitalized and struck with an illness that made her forget the world around her and the life she had lived. The pain felt fresh, but at the same time, so deep and so much a part of Steve that he didn’t know where it ended and he began. He-

Jimmy’s arms went around Steve’s shoulders, pulled Steve against his chest, held him close. And Steve cried.

-o-

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

-ch1: the sad sads and the sad time. We meet Bucky who isn’t bucky but… is bucky

-ch2: steve goes to apologize for being a disaster. Shows off the perfectly healed tattoo and takes bucky out for coffee/breakfast/pie. They talk. They laugh. Steve decides he should get another tattoo.

-ch3: tattoo number 2. Steve’s design. He asks about bucky’s tats. Learns that bucky is a beekeeper, asks how that’s even possible. They do another coffee/breakfast/pie thing after and talk more. 

-ch4: steve is injured on a mission. Team dynamics things. Decides to get another tattoo and emails the place and schedules a time and when he goes in Bucky is super relieved when Steve takes off his shirt and there are no scars or anything/steve is physically okay. Another post-tattoo date thing, and Bucky gives Steve a mason bee egg and house thing???? And also his phone number… so if Steve wants to schedule another tattoo… and also if he… ever wants to talk… or tell Bucky he’s not dead.

-ch5: another tattoo. Another post tattoo date. This time bucky says steve should come check out his rooftop garden/bee hive things and steve… totally takes him up on it and then goes back home and texts Natasha because DID HE GET ASKED OUT ON A DATE? 

-ch6: the date-date - i mean, they’ve all kind of been dates. Anyway. Checking out the bees. Seeing bucky in daylight. Asking to see Bucky’s tattoos and Bucky’s tattoos… are not all in PG13 places and he does NOT hesitate to take off his pants and show Steve ALL of them. And Steve, well, Steve 100% misses that Bucky is coming on to him real fucking strong. And Bucky figures he has been firmly friendzoned.

OR I MIGHT THROW SEX IN STARTING HERE BECAUSE I DUNNO. SLOW BURNS ARE ROUGH.

-ch7: post mission. Texting bucky. Bucky responding. Steve asks him to come over, check out the mason bee home at Avengers tower on THEIR rooftop garden and anyway, Natasha? Tony? People see them/Bucky and well, Bucky kind of gets the shovel talk and is like… but… Captain America has no interest in me - his heart is safe. Don’t worry. Which has STEVE all confused and sad and then they have a REAL TALK and anyone it ends with Bucky asking Steve out on a date - a real, official date with the expectations of a kiss and maybe some heavy petting.

-ch8: the date. Gotta come up with something… interrupted by an Avengers call and it’s awkward and awful and Steve is rushing away and then is like - he was PROMISED a kiss and heavy petting and turns back and there’s Bucky anyway and they kiss and Steve goes off and does his thing and ends up almost dying.

-ch9: wakes up to see Natasha at his side and they talk about things and feelings and etc. Steve sees that he’s missed some calls from Bucky. Calls him back, has the besotted face on and Natasha gives him shit for that. Bucky tells Steve that was the WORST first date he’s ever been on and Steve owed him.

-ch10: smutty epilogue. Date redux.

  
  



End file.
